No verdict after 3rd day of deliberations in Feeding Our Future trial
Deliberation for the federal trial of seven defendants charged in the sprawling Feeding Our Future fraud case will extend into Friday after jurors did not reach a verdict on Thursday.
This comes as the FBI continues to investigate a potential bribery scheme in which a juror was given $120,000 to acquit the defendants. The juror told the judge and was later dismissed from their role.
A second juror was dismissed on Tuesday after a family member asked if the judge was sequestering the jury “because of the bribe.”
Meanwhile, attorneys for one of the defendants, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, have asked the judge to release him from custody. The motion comes after the FBI was seen raiding another defendant’s home.
Derek Hove lives in the Savage neighborhood where the raid took place.
“There’s just a bunch of squad cars down there. FBI SUVs and you see a couple of little girls and some women being led out by police to the squad cars,” Hove said. “And that was kind of — that’s kind of sad.”
Neighbors told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS they saw the FBI comb through defendant Abdiaziz Farah’s home in Savage for hours and leave with bags.
“It’s concerning because there’s a lot of kids around this neighborhood,” Hove said.
Two years ago, neighbors saw a similar scene at Farah’s home play out.
“Feds went down to the house down there and raided it. Took out Teslas, took out a Porsche,” Hove said.
He’s hoping it’s the last raid he sees on his block.
“I’d like to see, you know, the guilty parties who are guilty and did it, you know, serve some justice,” Hove said. “What that is (is) not for me to decide.”
Newly filed court documents show all of the defendants were given juror lists at the beginning of the process. Those lists included the jurors’ personal information.
Attorneys for Shariff claim two of those lists were not returned as instructed by the court.